Zeus & Val sure have out done themselves yet again. A draw dropping dark silver bay filly with 3 white socks, huge star and quirky face markings. Huge strong filly who I'm pretty sure will be a dark chocolate with silver & heaps of bling. She will be a show stopper. I'm completely blown away with the quality of the foals Zeus is producing. Gosh its going to be very hard to part with this filly
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We are just delighted to have another special bub arrive at Ricinda Ranch. This special bub is out of our darling Sapphire who is a direct daughter of Peptos Stylish Oak & by our Reining stallion Hollywood Groover. Thrilled to have a filly. Not sure yet if she carries roan. HUGE thanks to everyone in flying fox Valley as this little lass caused a bit of a stir as had slipped through the fence. Mum & bub doing well. We will be taking EOIs on this little too so PM if interested. What a fabulous start to the season
Photos of our first bub of the season. What a cutie too! Curious & confident at birth like all Zeus bubs are. Long legs & long ears to match. I'm thinking gold champagne as has light skin however would love your input from all the colour experts as we certainly havent had a new born this colour. Maybe roan?? Sire is Ee,aa, RNn, Zn & dam Ee, aa, CHn Zn If he is red based silver will be hidden. We will send off for colour testing at some stage. This guy has some pretty special bloodlines. Dam is Ricinda Miss Trix & Sire Silver Big Stretch (IMP). Email for more info on this bub
So thrilled to see these 2 teaming up together again. Big congrats & huge thanks to Skye Liikanen for taking Ricinda Valiantly Blue to the South Burnett ranch show. Great results too. Such an awesome team
Day 1 of weaning & the bubs are taking it all in their stride. Chase seems to feel like the odd boy out with the 3 older fillies. Certainlya very sensible bunch of youngsters. A few weeks after a bit more education the 3 girls will head off to their new homes. A colourful bunch this year that's for sure amongst these ones. Blue roan, silver blue roan, silver black & classic champagne. 2 by Groover & 2 by Silver Big Stretch. Both the stallions Certainly put their stamp on them
It is 2 years ago today since I got the devastating news that our beautiful 4 yr old imported stallion ‘Silver N Dun’ was found dead in the paddock at the trainers. He died from a burst blood vessel that can just simply pop.
The ache of his loss still sits with me every day and grips my heart with a vengeance at times. Many times I have woken up thinking it was all just a nightmare however reality quickly sits in. In the shadow of his immense loss I had glimmers of hope through the 4 unborn foals he had due the following year. 3 of ours and 1 to an outside mare. I watched the mares carrying these precious foals tummies grow over the coming months. I stroked their bellies whilst whispering to the unborn foals how I longed to meet them. The next blow to my heartache was receiving the call that the lovely outside mare had aborted her little filly. In the spring I was blessed with 3 very dear little colts, a grulla colt (homozygous for dun), a brown colt and a stunning bay roan dun colt. Their arrival sure made my heart lift and the burden on his loss lighten. Sadly my losses weren’t finished yet with the unexpected death of the grulla colt at 3 weeks of age then the bay roan colt at 7 months. All of them were completely unrelated deaths and all which I was utterly powerless to prevent. The last 2 years have been a journey of such loss & sadness and I still struggle with the comprehension we lost not only him, but also 3 of his foals. In the early days after the loss of them there was lots of turmoil for me around thinking, 'do I give up or keep going?'. As the days went on it became clearer and clearer that a world without my beautiful horses was a world that would be far darker than the one I was in with my grief. My horses have always been bright lights in my life that have guided my through many dark times. What has also shone so brightly for me has been the wonderful support from those around me as well as the online community who have followed us through the highs and lows. All of your thoughts and care has also been so heart felt. I feel so blessed to have all of your energy around me. It also feels like this energy spills out into the hills and the hearts of my herd and for that I thank all of you. Our horses and my herd would not be where we are today without you Well what a year our gorgeous imported silver blue roan stallion Silver Big Stretch has had.
His first foal crop & we are just delighted with their type, temperament, confirmation & lastly colour & bling! He has added height & bone we were hoping for too. It's a huge risk to buy a young colt sight unseen from the other side of the world. The change from the first photo I saw of him to the magnificent stallion he is now is quite remarkable. So very very proud of my Zeus & CAN'T wait to see what foals he has this year with some very exciting mares bred to him. Some very exciting ones due too Well its looking more and more like this boy is actually going to be a roan. His sire is Hollywood Groover (Smoky Grulla) & his dam is Ricinda Truly Devine (Classic Champagne Roan Dun) I am starting to see patches of white coming through. He has been colour tested as a classic champagne through a company we use in Australia. All our roan testing we get done in the US as its much more accurate. We only do that for possible homozygous roans and roan generally is pretty easy to see. It can be a bit trickier to see at birth on the lighter colours such as this boy however will reveal itself once they start shedding their foal coat.
After a great deal of consultation we have finally decided that 2023 will be a year of some big changes for us.
With the loss of one of our imported stallions as well as the recent gelding of our other young stallion due to fertility issues our focus has had lots of re-calibrating. Also, seeing our other stallion Silver Big Stretch go so well under saddle has made our priority change. Our stud will be continuing however during the next 6-12 months we plan to sell our beautiful home & find a smaller horse property. This will mean we will sell half of our herd & only keep a handful of broodmares, our ridden horses & our special stallion Silver Big Stretch. We will be to still continue to breed 6 foals each year but will focus on showing our ridden horses. In the coming days I will work through the tough decision on which horses we will keep & which will be sold. We will be in no hurry to part with them until we find the right homes for them. There will be some blue roans, Silver's & most likely Hollywood Groover. These are top quality horses so they won't be cheap and all homes will need to be approved. Please contact us with your interest. |
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